


Late Nights in my Head

by voltran



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Insomnia, Not Shippy, let her rest, sleepy paladins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-23
Updated: 2016-07-23
Packaged: 2018-07-26 05:10:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7561693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voltran/pseuds/voltran
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I can take care of myself,” Pidge argued, glaring up at him. “I can still pilot my lion and fight Galra and all of that, so what’s the problem? It’s not hurting the team.”<br/>“But it is hurting you,” Shiro replied.</p><p>Pidge has a habit of keeping herself up and Shiro doesn't take no for an answer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Late Nights in my Head

**Author's Note:**

> just dipping my toes into fanfiction here, hope you enjoy. :)

_ Late Nights in My Head _

 

Another late night. Pidge wasn’t sure how many she’d had up to now–they tended to blur together after a certain point. There was always so much to get done, with the ship and lions in constant need of improvement and repair. She didn’t mind though–it kept her occupied, and she liked that.

She sat back in her chair, sighing and digging her palms into her eyes. Pulling her hand away, she blinked a few times before refocusing on her computer. 

With the lull in activity, she didn’t have any way to gauge exactly where improvements were needed. On slow nights like these, she tended to study the nuances of the Altean technology, but the motivation just didn’t strike her. She couldn’t get into it, but the time had just barely raked into the A.M. hours and she knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep any time soon.

Her fingers found the keyboard again. Maybe she could work on expanding the reach of her lion’s radar, or re-read the manual for the cryopods. (None of which struck her as particularly interesting, but it was better than shutting down the screen for the night so the only thing left in her head was the afterimage behind her eyelids and the chaotic reminders of the life she had both left behind and dedicated herself to reassembling.)

Her fingers tick-tacked away at the keys. She didn’t really want to think about her family. Every time she remembered her father and brother, she was jarred from her good mood with the same electrifying momentum of a shock from her bayard; every time she thought of her mother, her stomach sunk with guilt. The whole topic swallowed her in a whirlpool of stress and left her reeling for a landline and, on the better days, she could pull herself out. 

Sometimes the rut was too deep to scale, and the best she could do was push it to the back of her mind with distractions until sleep found her. (Sometimes, it didn’t, and she just tick-tacked on until morning.)

“C’mon, focus.” She muttered, leaning toward her computer screen.

Tonight felt like a fall-asleep-at-the-computer night. As much as she tried to get into her work, her thoughts drifted when they weren't consciously under her control. 

_ Maybe I should check our coordinates, to make sure we’re still going in the right direction. _ She thought, even though she knew without a doubt they were still on-course.  _ Or I could scan any nearby planets for signs of life– _

“What’re you still doing up?”

Pidge shouted and jumped, whipping around in her chair. Shiro stood a few feet away, looking at her with amusement. His hair was disheveled and he was wearing his pajamas. Pidge guessed he’d just rolled out of bed. 

“Oh, um,” Pidge stuttered, realizing she still hadn’t responded. “Just working on some things.”

Shiro hummed thoughtfully. “What kinds of things?” He asked. He stepped closer, looking at her laptop over her shoulder.

Pidge turned the screen down and away from his prying eyes. “Just some, um, improvements for the Green Lion.”

Shiro stood back and folded his arms. Pidge deflated a little. Of course that wouldn’t fool Shiro; the guy was like a machine with how perceptive he was, and as experienced Pidge was with lying he was just as good at seeing through her.

“Well, I’m sure it can wait until morning.” Shiro said. “No reason keeping yourself up later than you have to.”

Pidge tried to shrug him off. “I know, I was just about to head in anyway. Don’t worry about it.”

Shiro raised his eyebrows, disbelieving. Pidge sighed.

“For  _ real _ , Shiro. I’m practically on my way out already.”

They locked eyes for a moment, a silent challenge rebounding between them and daring the other to say something else. Then Shiro smiled.

“Great. We can go together then.”

Pidge stifled a groan. “Sure,” she said. “Just give me a minute to wrap some things up.”

Shiro shrugged. “I’m not in a hurry.” He leaned against the wall next to her desk, watching her intently.

Pidge’s shoulders caved inwards like a shield. She opened back up her laptop and pulled up an old tab. With Shiro breathing down her neck, it would be difficult to lose herself in the numbers. She wondered if she could outwait him, if he would get too tired to wait if she just held out long enough.

But her eyes were dry and itching, and through her exhaustion she didn’t think to stifle her yawn. She pressed on, but the hand on her shoulder pulled her back.

“Come on, Pidge,” Shiro insisted. “It’s time for bed.”

Her shoulder tensed under his grip. She didn’t turn around. “I’m almost done, Shiro.”

“Pidge.”

There was a warning in his voice, some knowing lilt that gave enough in the ways of understanding to make her turn around. 

The irritation prickling under her skin eased a little as she met his gaze. He knew what she was doing. She knew it too, but that didn’t stop her from finding any excuse to stay distracted, stay up just one minute later before she was stuck in in the dark with nothing but her thoughts for company. It wasn’t the loneliness that got to her so much as the crushing thought of  _ You’ll never see them again _ that seemed to wait in the shadowed corners of her mind until the lights went out and it had room to breathe. Pidge was all-too-aware of how good at running away she’d become. Numbers and coding and robots–any excuse was a good excuse if it kept her mind in a constructive, linear direction.

Shiro wasn’t a stranger to sleepless nights, Pidge knew that. She’d see him on his worser nights over the monitors, when he’d leave his room and walk the halls. He’d never come to the Green Lion’s hangar before though, and she wondered what had led him in.

“Yeah,” she said. “Just closing up.”

She typed in a few numbers for good measure and shut down her laptop. Standing up from her chair, she took a moment to stretch.

Shiro led the way out of the hangar. “So what kind of improvements were you working on?” He asked, shooting her a sly glance out of the corner of his vision.

Pidge sighed. “It was mostly a general diagnosis on the current state of things. Any improvements would be built off of that.”

Shiro hummed. “I see. Why do that so late? We haven’t encountered any Galra in a week and we don’t have any planned fights coming up.”

“I must’ve lost track of the time,” Pidge said. “And it’s not like we’ll always be able to plan our fights. What if some Galra ship just appeared out of nowhere? What if we were all sleeping when it happened?” She shrugged. “Just saying, you can never be too prepared.”

Shiro made a considering sound, let the note hang over into his voice as he spoke. “Well, no, but there is such a thing as overworking yourself. We can’t have our right arm falling asleep in the middle of a fight now can we?”

Pidge snorted. “When has that happened to anyone? All of the adrenaline would keep me awake anyway.”

They turned into the main corridor leading away from the hangars. Shiro shook his head. “Pidge, that’s not the point. What I’m saying is, you need to take care of yourself. It’s not good for you to be up this late all the time.”

“I  _ can _ take care of myself,” Pidge argued, glaring up at him. “I can still pilot my lion and fight Galra and all of that, so what’s the problem? It’s not hurting the team.”

“But it is hurting you,” Shiro replied.

Pidge’s shoulders stiffened and shot tension down her spine. “Not any more than it helps,” she muttered.

Shiro raised an eyebrow. His eyes flicked down to her fingers, fidgeting at the hems of her sleeves as if trying to hide themselves underneath the fabric. He looked back up at her face again. They turned into a hallway that split off towards the bedrooms. 

He cleared his throat. “I don’t know what you’re trying to avoid, exactly.” He started, choosing his words carefully. Pidge looked up at him. He was staring straight ahead. “But if it’s the kind of thing that keeps you up this late, I can sort of understand the appeal of not being stuck in your own head.”

They reached the rooms. Shiro paused by her door. “Pidge,” he said, huffing the word like he’d been wondering how to start for a while and had finally given up on any sort of finessing. “I know you’re concerned about your family, and I know sometimes you probably feel like you’re not doing all you can in order to find them. But if I knew anything about Sam Holt, it was that he had absolute faith that his children could be successful in anything they put their minds to.” He paused. “I don’t doubt that they’re still out there, and maybe they’re a little worse for wear. But we haven’t stopped searching yet, and we won’t stop searching until we find them.” He grinned. “It’s too early to give up, Katie.”

Pidge felt something tremor in her ribcage, something heavy and emotional and a long time coming. She swallowed the knot in her throat and met Shiro’s eyes. The sincerity there was almost unbearable.

She took a small breath. “I haven’t given up,” she replied, forcing some semblance of indignation into her tone and not missing the way Shiro’s lips quirked at the sound of it. “I’m going to find them, no matter what it takes.”

She found herself surrounded, suddenly, by the warm weight of encouragement. Shiro’s arms wrapped around her back and she brought hers up automatically to rest on his.

“Good,” he whispered. “Goodnight Pidge.”

“Night Shiro.” She replied, and they separated. Pidge disappeared into her room and listened to the automatic door slide shut behind her. 

Getting to bed that night wasn’t any easier than usual. Negativity still harassed her from the fuzzy edges of her mind, but she found it easier to deal with somehow. The warmth of her blanket reminded her of Shiro’s reassurance, and something about that gave her the strength to bear it.


End file.
